BIOS not detecting hard drive

[M.L.]

I'm trying to swap a SATA hard drive from a defunct desktop into a
working desktop (Sony VAIO VGC-RA840G) that has no hard drive. The
defunct computer and its hard drive have been sitting in a basement
for about 2 years collecting dust.

After installing the drive according to instructions from the Sony
website, the BIOS only shows the 2 DVD drives being detected.

Primary IDE Master [Sony DVD RW D]
Primary IDE Slave [HL-DT-STDVD-ROM]

The Hardware tab of the BIOS shows:

SCSI-0: ST3160023A5

which is the correct model of the newly installed 160 GB hard drive.

The overall installation was easy. I've never installed a hard drive
before so I'm wondering if I missed setting something properly. I
noticed a set of jumper pins on the hard drive but there was no
plastic jumper on them to set as Master, Slave, or Select, and I've
read that SATA drives don't need to be jumpered anyway.

Any help with troubleshooting this issue will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[meerkat]

I'm trying to swap a SATA hard drive from a defunct desktop into a
working desktop (Sony VAIO VGC-RA840G) that has no hard drive. The
defunct computer and its hard drive have been sitting in a basement
for about 2 years collecting dust.

After installing the drive according to instructions from the Sony
website, the BIOS only shows the 2 DVD drives being detected.

Primary IDE Master [Sony DVD RW D]
Primary IDE Slave [HL-DT-STDVD-ROM]

The Hardware tab of the BIOS shows:

SCSI-0: ST3160023A5

which is the correct model of the newly installed 160 GB hard drive.

The overall installation was easy. I've never installed a hard drive
before so I'm wondering if I missed setting something properly. I
noticed a set of jumper pins on the hard drive but there was no
plastic jumper on them to set as Master, Slave, or Select, and I've
read that SATA drives don't need to be jumpered anyway.

Any help with troubleshooting this issue will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Probably a SATA driver problem.,
bw..M

 

[Jordon]

I'm trying to swap a SATA hard drive from a defunct desktop into a
working desktop (Sony VAIO VGC-RA840G) that has no hard drive. The
defunct computer and its hard drive have been sitting in a basement
for about 2 years collecting dust.

After installing the drive according to instructions from the Sony
website, the BIOS only shows the 2 DVD drives being detected.

Primary IDE Master [Sony DVD RW D]
Primary IDE Slave [HL-DT-STDVD-ROM]

The Hardware tab of the BIOS shows:

SCSI-0: ST3160023A5

which is the correct model of the newly installed 160 GB hard drive.

The overall installation was easy. I've never installed a hard drive
before so I'm wondering if I missed setting something properly. I
noticed a set of jumper pins on the hard drive but there was no
plastic jumper on them to set as Master, Slave, or Select, and I've
read that SATA drives don't need to be jumpered anyway.

Any help with troubleshooting this issue will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

If it's how you say in the first part of your post, the error
upon boot would be that there is no boot drive detected (or
something like that). Is that what happens? Or does it start
to boot but Windows fails to load because all of the Windows
drivers installed on that drive don't work with all the new
and different hardware?

 

[M.L.]

I'm trying to swap a SATA hard drive from a defunct desktop into a
working desktop (Sony VAIO VGC-RA840G) that has no hard drive. The
defunct computer and its hard drive have been sitting in a basement
for about 2 years collecting dust.

After installing the drive according to instructions from the Sony
website, the BIOS only shows the 2 DVD drives being detected.

Primary IDE Master [Sony DVD RW D]
Primary IDE Slave [HL-DT-STDVD-ROM]

The Hardware tab of the BIOS shows:

SCSI-0: ST3160023A5

which is the correct model of the newly installed 160 GB hard drive.

The overall installation was easy. I've never installed a hard drive
before so I'm wondering if I missed setting something properly. I
noticed a set of jumper pins on the hard drive but there was no
plastic jumper on them to set as Master, Slave, or Select, and I've
read that SATA drives don't need to be jumpered anyway.

Any help with troubleshooting this issue will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Probably a SATA driver problem.,
bw..M

The original installed drive for the Sony VAIO VGC-RA840G is SATA so
all the cable connections were intact. There are no drivers installed
because there is no operating system installed yet.

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm trying to swap a SATA hard drive from a defunct desktop into a
working desktop (Sony VAIO VGC-RA840G) that has no hard drive.
The defunct computer and its hard drive have been sitting in a
basement for about 2 years collecting dust.

After installing the drive according to instructions from the Sony
website, the BIOS only shows the 2 DVD drives being detected.

Primary IDE Master [Sony DVD RW D]
Primary IDE Slave [HL-DT-STDVD-ROM]

The Hardware tab of the BIOS shows:

SCSI-0: ST3160023A5

which is the correct model of the newly installed 160 GB hard drive.

Most likely you just need to partition and format the drive now.

The XP install will allow you to do that.

The overall installation was easy. I've never installed a hard drive
before so I'm wondering if I missed setting something properly.

Yes, the drive needs to be partitioned and formatted.

I noticed a set of jumper pins on the hard drive but there was
no plastic jumper on them to set as Master, Slave, or Select,

There is no master and slave with SATA drives.

and I've read that SATA drives don't need to be jumpered anyway.

It should be jumpered correctly given that it came out of a system.

Any help with troubleshooting this issue will be greatly appreciated.

Just proceed with the installation of XP, the install
should see the drive and allow you to format the drive.

Right now I just want the drive to be detected so I can install Win XP MCE from a boot CD.

Just boot from that CD and install XP.